National Democratic
Revolution, Part 3c
Theory and
Practice
What was happening in the six years between the “Black
Republic Thesis” of 1928 and Moses Kotane’s “Cradock Letter” of 1934? Why was
it necessary for Kotane to ask again in 1934 for things which should have been
assured in 1928?
The answer is that the intervening period was a time of
terrible sectarianism in the SACP, causing a weakening of the entire liberation
struggle.
In the linked, downloadable chapter Jack and Ray (Alexander)
Simons tell the story of how the “Black Republic Thesis” was, within two years,
perverted into a self-contradictory, mechanical formula by the very same ECCI
(Executive Committee of the Communist International) that had laid down the
famous Black Republic Thesis of 1928. This formula proposed at one and the same
time a “two-stage revolution” that was to be led exclusively by a “go-it-alone”
communist party. The Simons reveal the confused nature of the ECCI’s thinking
with the following rhetorical question:
“If there was to be no united action, not even with leaders of Gumede's
calibre and not for a programme of immediate demands, why should the party aim
at an 'independent native republic’, instead of an out-and-out socialist
revolution?”
The ECCI’s 1930 memorandum was neither fish nor fowl. It was
neither one thing nor the other.
The arrival of two individuals, Wolton and Bach, who played
on their connections with the Communist International (CI), triggered, in these
circumstances, wave after wave of expulsions and horrible treachery of comrade
against comrade. The Simons do not flinch from telling the truth about all
this.
As much as it is a terrible story, yet the whole affair
revolved around the same fundamental questions that resolved themselves in due
course, once again, into a firm theory of National Democratic Revolution.
These are the questions of the relationship between the
Vanguard and the Mass, and between the National and Class questions.
The ghosts of the sectarian period still reappear
occasionally in holes and corners of our movement, and sometimes burst out with
temporary ferocity.
To be fore-warned is to be fore-armed.
In this clear and easy-to-read chapter the Simons did a
great service to our movement as a whole.
The picture is of Ray Alexander Simons: worker, intellectual, trade
unionist, leader of women, and communist.
- The above is to introduce the original reading-text: Class
and Colour, C19, Theory and Practice, Simons and Simons.
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